Virtues that grant xps after character creation....

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Hi,

Oddly enough, that might make it worth more, not less! Minor story flaws tend to come with nifty benefits. Your parens might ask for a favor, but might also come to your aid in a big way. Still, the relationship in this case is very much up to the player to define, and it can be played as Patron, but also as something much less influential. The Virtue doesn't specify.

I think Skilled Parens should be the Tremere House Virtue.

I deliberately excluded them, treating them as 'something extra that's nice but hard to assess.'

Anyway,

Ken

22

Skilled Parens for a Tremere should make it more difficult for you to gain your sigil (and also assumes that your paren has your sigil).

I like FM just from a style point of few - being very very good with spells. Plus, the seasons it can save you is invaluable, especially in a saga where you are busy trying to step up/strength the covenant instead of all sitting around your labs all year.

Btw, what about the other virtues which grant XP (Arcane Lore, Educated, Warrior), how do you rate them?

Kal

23

Hi,

All less good for magi than Skilled Parens because they give less stuff.

OTOH, if you want your magus to start with weapon skills, Warrior does the trick.

Anyway,

Ken

24

Hi,

Following up about 'what's good,'... in this thread I focused on virtues that grant experience over time, using Good Parens as a baseline for immediate xp gratification. :slight_smile:

The actual value of xp is a different matter entirely!

The way I see it, the virtue of virtues lies in the capabilities they provide.

LLSM is a favorite, because it immediately allows access to any level 15 spell, and others too. Sure, there's a risk! Yet the player can choose the risk. It is a nasty risk too, which makes the virtue fairly priced.

By contrast, I like Cautious Sorcerer and always want to have it, yet it doesn't open capabilities; I see this as a supplemental virtue.

By contrast, I find Diedne Magic sub-par. It takes a long, long time for it to fulfill its potential and offer a character new capability.

Maxing out a TeFo does more than just give more of the same. It provides different kinds of spells. It provides penetration. It provides a better familiar. It makes teaching an apprentice more effective. It provides wide capabilities in almost 30% of all Hermetic Magic.

By contrast, I always want to increase characteristics because they offer broad value--yet the small benefit doesn't usually provide a new capability. Thus, given the choice between increasing Intelligence by one point or Magic Theory by two, I find the latter more attractive.

By contrast, maxing out all Hermetic casting offers diminishing returns. If my magus can solve a problem one way, being able to solve it a second and third way offers choices, but less capability. It also makes the character less interesting, because it's always fun to see how a character who only has a hammer manages to transform his problem into a nail.

My love for SFB isn't just about the 225xp I extract from it; that 225xp might be Second Sight 3, Folk Ken 2, four Craft skills at 1, Music 4, Carouse 3, Brawl 4.... These are capabilities too!

Bringing this back around to Warrior.... the 50xp it provides can be viewed as Some Weapon Ability 4. Which is a nice capability, if this is the hammer you want to give your magus. And, since Warrior lets you spend xp on weapon skills, why not be descended from a Faerie Knight, and give yourself 225xp of martial skills? :slight_smile: (Or better yet, work with your SG on the faerie bonus of being a Faerie Knight, so you don't need Warrior anymore. I love SFB! It also attaches a character to real medieval mythology. Being related to demons or faeries explains how a wizard is a wizard quite nicely too.)

Anyway,

Ken

25

For virtues, this may be an evidence, but it depends a lot on the pace and length of your saga. In slow-moving sagas, virtues like skilled parens or warrior are much more valuable than if you're gonna play through 80 years of devellopment.

lol that's something I've been telling here and there over and over again: You don't have to have the Pagan flaw to be pagan, nor the Dependant flaw to be married, nor the Proud flaw to be proud.

And when your dependant gets old and die? You get his children as dependants :wink:

That's a great idea! :smiley:

26

Hi,

Yup! :slight_smile: Pretty much what I said in the first post.

Skilled Parens is a good virtue. Imagine a character who took it 10 times....

(OTOH, if you let me read for 10 years before play begins, I'll go with Book Learner.)

Anyway,

Ken

27

Just a couple points I think have been overlooked:

Independent Study: There are two important points. First, depending on the type of game being played or how you're playing your character, this can be far more effective than even than Book Learner. If the game is very slow-paced then you may be left with a situation where either you adventure or never use your character. Even if the game is a little faster-paced but your plan is to use that character a lot, this can still be good, especially if you use abilities that don't get written about much. Think of it as getting to not lose out when adventuring. That doesn't necessarily make it great, but it can. Second, if you have a low Magic Might, this can be fabulous. You need to practice or adventure or be instructed to do Transformation, but instruction is going to be hard to find.

Flawless Magic: You all are not necessarily adding the points properly. If you are going to master a bunch of spells, then the seasons spent doing so are probably spent getting fewer experience than you would receive studying something else. If you invent a new spell, then you'd be practicing to master it. The character without Flawless Magic would spend a season on the spell and a season mastering it at rank 1. The one with Flawless Magic could use that second season to study something else, which provides and average of about 10 experience with no bonuses. So, if you are planning to master most of your spells, that initial bonus can be worth closer to 10 experience than the 5 listed. Of course, if you're not planning on mastering spells, it's just not worth it. There's another important point, too: using a spare 10 or 20 lab total points here and there to learn a low magnitude spell or two along with taking Fast Casting can nearly allow such a mastery specialist to use spontaneous magic without dividing and without fatigue. These are things no one might normally consider mastering but can become extremely effective when mastered.

Tremere: I have considered using Minor Potent Magic in Certamen instead of the Minor Magical Focus, thus keeping nearly the same thing while freeing up the focus.

Chris

28

Hi,

I don't think they were overlooked.

If by "slow pace" you mean that game time proceeds slowly, then both Independent Study and Book Learner suck, because the saga might play for years in real time while the magi adventure for five or six years. Better to take Skilled Parens and be done, because you'll never earn back the xp.

As soon as a lot of game time elapses between adventures, Independent Study become very eh.

In a game where every session, you have the choice between playing your character or having a lab season, Book Learner does become less interesting, and Independent Study more. But Skilled Parens becomes even more valuable by comparison, because having those xp up front as a hedge against dying is critical. In that game, I might go so far as to suggest that Cautious Sorcerer becomes mandatory. If the game doesn't run for 20 Adventures, Independent Study wasn't worth it.

In a game where the SG lets you spend seasons Adventuring without having to play them through (and there are a few ways to do this, some more reasonable than others), the virtue again increases in value. But now we're in the realm of house rules. Even so, reading books is almost always better, so getting extra xps for reading is better.

This was also not overlooked; note the discussion in the original post regarding gauging the value of FM in terms of seasons saved rather than xp.

And yes, once you're trying to optimize FM, it pays to learn a bunch of small spells in a single TeFo during a single season, because they all get mastery 1. I thought of this, but decided not to go here, because the essential discussion remains the same: Does it pay for your character to do this, other than 'look, more xp?' Does the character without FM feel at all tempted to master those spells? How many seasons does FM really provide, to be translated into other useful endeavors?

Anyway,

Ken

29

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My bad i wrote to short, i meant of course including the limitation we run with as standard that those can only be triggered once per season.

Yeah, and if both are Techs you have a rather nice allrounder, while if its one Te and one Fo, you have a really nasty specialist. Oh yes very useful.

That depends alot on what kind of grog. Just as possible is 2-3 seasons adventure and 1-2 season practise. Makes it 10-11 xp/y instead.
After 5 years its only benefits then.

30

Lol... Same goes for Puissant. And in both cases its clearly stated in the rules book. :stuck_out_tongue:
But i know how dastardly easy it is to miss things so dont worry, you´re in good company!

Not that i ever stuck to the restriction... :smiling_imp:

Yeah, both should always trigger on ANY xp(only exception being that bonus xp should never trigger it(ie bonus xp from SI should not be able to trigger EM)).
And if you want to make SI decent, have it include magical abilities as well as arts as a 3rd category, with xp gained in 2(or 3) arts/abilities in each of the other categories.
And set EM so that it gives 2xp per bonus art per triggering. This makes both worth having and im yet to have any problems with it being overpowering(and then you can also add for example Life Mage, like EM but including An,Co,He,Me).

Let xp bonus virtues be "active" retroactively. If the bonus is high or rarely triggers (Apt Student), assume it triggers once per year, if its low but triggers easily (Study Bonus), assume it triggers twice/y.

Or quiet or subtle casting, diluted duration, delayed casting, etc etc, there´s ALWAYS some mastery that can be useful.

31

Yes, Skilled Parens is great, as are other straight experience virtues, when in a short campaign. But I was making the comparison to Book Learner.

How about in the following situation? I have a companion who is a warrior and designed to lead the grogs. This means usually if any magus is adventuring, he is too, even if the rest are studying or working in the lab. His main skills are above the point where it's easy to find someone to train him, and not many people write tractatus on Brawl or Great Weapon. When he is at the covenant, he's more likely to be training the grogs than anything else. Which will pay off more, Book Learner or Independent Study? If this game runs a long time, does a straight experience virtue (since Skilled Parens cannot be taken) really become better than Independent Study? (Note, he does have Puissant for some abilities, which started off more valuable than 50 experience in those abilities.)

True, under the extreme caveat that we're assuming there are books for what you need. A big part of my point had been that there aren't always. For examples, see the above character or consider what I mentioned about Magic Might.

I'm not saying you didn't mention it. I'm saying the evaluation of points from those extra seasons that were mentioned is getting overlooked. Look at the later evaluation of points when it was not included. It is being overlooked, if not by everyone.

But it still must be included because otherwise some of the value is being discounted. It shouldn't be valued against a minor virtue multiplied by 3. It should be multiplied by 2.5 or something like that. Even disregarding this, you can't compare it to the best minor virtue, but only to the average of the best three - you can't take Book Learner three times.

Also, it's not about whether the character without FM is tempted to master spells. It's about the character who is going to master those spells and whether FM is worth it for that character. Book Learner is terrible for someone who cannot read and will never learn to read. That doesn't mean Book Learner is terrible. The question must be whether or not it is worthwhile for someone who would be reaping its benefits. For a totally different example, how valuable are prescription lenses for someone with perfect vision? Does this mean prescription lenses aren't valuable?

Chris

32

About Story & Personality Flaws, there is also the fact that oftentimes they are used as Ordeals in Mystery Initiations, even in canon examples of Initiation Scripts, so the character that makes several Initiations could end with a sizable array of them through no real fault of the player (e.g., if you follow the Merinita path, you could easily end up with Fear, Poor Memory, Prohibition, Faerie Friend, Vow), even if he dutifully built his character to the 1 SF, 1-2 PF specifications.

33

Hi,

Yes. I'm saying that in this context, neither is any good.

Independent Study.

Still, I said in my last post that I wouldn't give it to this kind of character, because I'd want him to survive. Tough sure looks nice, as do other virtues that provide their full benefit immediately and never go obsolete.

If it runs a while and the grog doesn't expire, of course not! Again, though, I think this kind of character does best with virtues that give their all from the start. If the grog doesn't have a social status virtue or flaw that lets him start with Martial Abilities, Warrior is a clear winner over Independent Study.

It is included, because the considerations are exactly the same. Having level 1 mastery is nice, yes--but how nice is it? Depends on the spell, really. There is always value, and that deserves consideration, yet for many spells, that value is less than the season another magus needs to gain that mastery.

I'll put it differently: How good is that mastered spell to the character who does have FM? Is the benefit of a particular mastered spell cosmetic? If FM didn't exist and some lesser virtue existed instead, how likely would a character interested in lots of spell mastery bother with mastering this spell?

The idea is to look at value, not just count experience points. What are they really buying?

Your style of argument in this last paragraph is not valuable, except toward ending useful conversation:

  1. I didn't say that BL is terrible. No one in this discussion did.
  2. I didn't say that FM is terrible. No one in this discussion did.
  3. This discussion has largely been about magi, who can read.
  4. From the very first post, the issue has indeed been on whether FM is worthwhile, and the answer depends on the question, "How many spells does your magus want to master, and how much effort does he want to put into improving that mastery?" It has never been about anything else; digressions about incremental value are about this very point.
  5. We have not been talking about prescription lenses.
  6. The discussion hasn't been about whether FM is useless. That has not been said. The closest has been Wanderer's comment, that FM isn't good for a spont specialist.

The kind of championing I would find valuable would go something like this: Here is a character with FM. He knows X Formulaic spells. He has some mastery in all of them, but of the ones he has mastered to only 1 level, I get lots of benefit from these, a little benefit from those, and for those others, mastery never really mattered much. So let's ignore the ones that never mattered, count the good ones in full and those others in between, let's set them aside for now and discuss value at the end. Now, the spells I developed past level 1 clearly matter to me, because I developed them! I calculate that in developing these past level 1, I saved Q seasons over a magus who didn't have FM. So my minimum gain over the past T years of my magus' career has been Q plus 1 per really useful mastery still at 1. Mastery has been every bit as good for my character as I hoped, so this isn't a dead end path. And I used those extra seasons to gain Z xp in other areas. So let's see what I ended up with...

Marko did something like this, in terms of counting xp, using a synergy between Mastered Spells and FM. It was quite nice, and very different in tone from raising counterarguments and analogies that are not relevant.

Just saying.

Anyway,

Ken

34

How would 50 experience help him survive that much more? That's less than the benefit of Puissant X. It also becomes even less valuable than Puissant X over time. Also, 50 experience would amount to about a +1.5 to a single primary ability for the character, or split the 1.5 among other things. How frequently is that 1.5 in a single ability going to make the difference in survival? Rather, now the covenant has a warrior who can train their grogs to fight really well, is himself a great warrior, and will keep improving over a long time. That might even make him worthwhile enough for a longevity ritual investment. (I added another virtue to make this definitely the case.) Now perhaps he actually has a better overall survival chance?

Ummm... actually, I was using this style:

It wasn't my style, but I'm glad you agree it doesn't help answer the question. I was merely showing how it didn't help. The analogies were just to help make the point obvious; they clearly worked.

I totally agree. It won't be worthwhile for someone who doesn't take advantage of it. So how much does it get the person who really takes advantage of it? After all, that is the situation being argued for Book Learner.

One of my favorites is to learn 10 PeVi20 or so counterspells all with Fast Casting. You don't need a high level spell. That's what Parma Magica is for. You just want to stop the low level ones. Especially after learning the first one to get +4 to the next ones, you should be able to pick up 2 or 3 in a season. If this is your thing, 2 is simple without books, 3 with books. Let's look at the worse case here: 5 seasons to get the 10 spells, but you get a mastery score of 1 in 10 different abilities, too. Extra points in those masteries don't really matter since you can't use other abilities with Fast Casting. That gives you 10 free seasons compared to what you would have had had you not taken the virtue. (Some people house-rule books, but I'm just going with RAW.) If you study for those 10 seasons, then the virtue has earned you roughly a bonus 100 experience over 15 seasons. This is a typical good use of FM. If you've started with Mastered Spells, too, then FM provides at least 50 experience off the bat plus a bunch for whatever spells you took that you actually wanted mastered (ignore the ones you wouldn't have mastered); that's probably about 70 off the bat. If you use half your seasons taking advantage of things in a method such as what I showed, then you'll pick up the missing 110 experience in about 8 years. So let's move things against FM. Double this. In 16 years for someone taking advantage of FM it will become more than three times as valuable as Skilled Parens for someone who's focusing in it but not working hard at focusing in it. (Do notice, I didn't even take advantage of the doubling part of the virtue after apprenticeship, either, to show how good it can be.)

I'm not going to argue that FM is nearly as good in general as Book Learner. It's not. Even for the FM specialist, Book Learner is just as good, maybe even better. For magi, Book Learner is king. But the point is that FM can very easily move to that kind of scale if you really do specialize in its use. What that means is that point for point, FM is one of the best learning virtues; it just doesn't apply to most characters.

Chris

35

It all depends on your style. Flawless Magic is not very useful at all to the Spont specialist. For me, I take full advantage of it whenever I can. With the types of spells I choose, Mastery is not wasted on anything. There is not a single spell where I say "meh, doesn't mater if that one is mastered or not". Then again, I am playing Flambeau warrior magi. Stressful casting situations are the norm, speed & penetration and accuraccy are all essential, concentration is often of the essence, and so on. I get a distinct advantage out of each and every Mastery that I find useful. If I was creating, say, a Verditius or a Diedne, extensive spell mastery might not be as important to me. If I was a Bonisagus Lab Rat or a Jerbiton diplomat, a few masteries here and there would be excellent, but total mastery is unnecessary. But if my magus is to be oriented for combat &/or adventure, then I want as much mastery as I can.

Would I have taken the time to master each and every one of those spells without FM? Probably not, as I would not be able to afford the time (btw, I miscalculated my savings, it is closer to +150xps over the past five years; 5xp per spell plus half of the increase in scores after that). i would still want to master them all, I just wouldn't be able to spend as much time on it as I would like.

36

Invoking smurf's parma Hedge Magic discusses different ways to change elementalist. I would like it to be closer to Hermatic Sorcery for elementals than the current form.

37

Nope. That was a debate from a while ago. You can use any and all mastery abilities in conjunction with Fast Casting. You are taking the bit about not being able to use casting options for Words and Gestures and applying it where it does not apply. You can fast multicast, fast-penetrate, fast quick-cast (specifically mentioned under quick cast), and etceteras.

38

Really? Did that make it into the errata? I think it just says options in general and doesn't specify the type. I'll have to go back and reread it.

I thought Quick Casting was just a specific exception because of its statement.

Chris

39

I have not yet done it and I don't know that I will be doing it any time soon but you folks are vastly under estimating the power of secondary insight. First off, it is limited to arts where book learning applies to abilities too however unlike book learner which requires you have a book, it applies to books, raw vis or from an actual teacher. This means where there is no book or you have maxed out the book, you can still grow that art. Second, if you focus on learning techniques, it is 4 xp a season (2 if you learn a form).

early on, it is weak since you are studying mainly from books so that it matches book learner but eventualy book learner will fizzle out for benefit (as you run out of books 15-20 years into saga). Secondary insight remains valuable for the life of the mage.

Elemental Magic too has uptapped depths if you want to focus on elements. First off, you ignore the effect of requisite for other elemental forms (minor since this virtue tends to help your elements keep pase). Bigger, you invent a spell in the lab of one element with requisite of one of the other elements and apply the exposure xp 1 pt to one art and 1 pt to the requisite art and you get total of 2 xp to every one of the elemental arts (8 xp for a season in lab). If you get 4 pts of adventure XP and you used spells of every element on the adventure, you can apply 1 xp to each of the four elements and it kicks in to become 4 to each art turning 4 xp into 16. Sure this doesn't seem like much but 5 such adventures and season in lab equals 21-22 xp in each of elemental art and you have a 7 (if you started at 0) with benefit of 66 XP over 5 season.

Again, this is not something I have done or am likely to do any time soon but it is something to consider.

40

I would note that the OP focused his valuation of BL on the assumption that a magus would read three seasons a year. That strikes me as highly-saga-based-in-a-way-that-I-look-at-it-and-go-"how-do-they-manage-that?" (HSBIAWTILAIAGHDTMT... I don't think that acronym is going to catch on... maybe YSMRV, for Your Saga May Really Vary).

On a lark, I looked at my bookish Bonisagus from my current campaign. We started in the ruins of an old Covenant, and have reclaimed enough power over the decade or so we've been there that I feel we're on the hump of Spring and Summer. Below, the number of seasons from each year my Book Learning, Secondary Insight magusmanaged to read.

1218: 1
1219: 0 (Darn Lab needing to get built!)
1220: 0 (Darn need for vis extraction!)
1221: 3 (Yay! Four years in, I finally made it to the "average")
1222: 0 (Darn spell invention...)
1223: 1
1224: 2
1225: 3
1226: 1
1227: 3
AVG: 1.4

And this is a character who has never gone on an adventure. (I'm primary SG, so I designed a character who would vastly prefer staying home.) I'm not sure his reading time is going to go up, either. He has an apprentice to train now (much of the reading was to speed his way to 5s); that'll suck up a season per year. He has an interest in fertility magic, so whenever someone finds an interesting artifact, that takes at least one season to study, and often two or more. And that's on top of standard invention and writing.
Tremere get called to duty. Flambeau go crusading. Jerbiton have painting to do. Verditius have stuff to make. There are seriously people who manage to devote 3/4 of their time to reading?

(Note: I do think my character above may eventually manage to get his average as high as 2. Maybe.)